Some people suffer from the appearance of warts on portions of their skin, such as plantar warts that commonly develop on the bottom of people's feet. Such warts are typically caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV) occurring on the sole or toes of the foot. Plantar warts and other varieties of warts can be self-limiting, but a number of topical treatment options are available to treat the site of a plantar wart after the wart appears and grows on the skin. These skin warts are commonly caused when HPV spreads from a floor or other surface to infect a person via compromised skin through direct contact, for example, when HPV penetrates through the skin via tiny cuts and abrasions in the outermost layer of skin. After HPV infects the person, warts may not be visible or otherwise noticed for a period weeks. When such a wart appears, the wart can be painful if left untreated.
Presently, plantar warts are not prevented by inoculation (e.g., Gardasil, Cervarix, or the like) with currently available HPV vaccines because such warts are usually caused by different strains of HPV. Instead of using medical applications to prevent plantar warts on human skin, such warts are most commonly treated only after the warts appear on the infected skin. For example, typical post-infection treatments might include one or more of topical application of a salicylic acid product directly over the wart and repeated over a period of weeks, cryosurgery or other tissue destroying techniques, and surgical excision. In some circumstances, these treatment options can be painful, costly, time-consuming (including the recovery period), or a combination thereof, and furthermore such treatments may lead to scar formation.